Survivor's Guilt Read online

  “I’m going to be a dad?”

  “You’re going to be a dad.”

  “WOOOO HOOO!!!!” I yelped as I fist pumped the air and held onto my wife with the other. Everyone in the cabin turned to look at me as I made a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t give a shit.

  “Evan,” my wife scolded me as I released her and did some crazy assed Irish jig right there on the dance floor.

  “Evan,” she said again this time laughing her ass off at me.

  “Okay! Okay everyone,” I announced. “This gorgeous woman, this perfect person I get the esteemed privilege to call my wife just told me I’m going to be a dad!”

  Catcalls and a loud thunderous applause echoed off the glass as I grabbed my wife and bent her backwards in a nineteen-fifties style kiss before up righting us.

  I didn’t think there was anything that could have made me happier in that moment.

  Suddenly, the boat shifted again and this time people fell and some glasses crashed and shattered on the floor.

  “Ladies and gentleman. The coast guard has informed me that there is a storm moving in rather quickly. At first we thought that it would bypass us, but it looks to be heading right in our direction. The water is beginning to become too choppy for us to proceed so we will be turning back towards shore. You will be compensated for the time lost on your voyage tonight. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

  The waiters and other staff on the boat began handing out life vests when the boat began to rock more forcefully side to side. I made sure to keep my wife close to me so that I could help keep her steady. She began to look a little sick and I didn’t know if it were from the boat or if she were already feeling the effects of the pregnancy.

  A father…I’m going to be a daddy to someone who is going to be completely dependent upon me.

  Rain began to pound against the glass windows of the cabin causing a small roar as the boat continued towards the marina.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, looks like things are going to start getting rough. We are still approximately thirty miles off shore, so if you would, please find a railing to secure yourselves to until we have made it safely back to land.”

  I walked with Lilly and child toward the outer edge of the cabin so that we could hold onto the railing like the captain had requested. I secured myself to the railing and made sure she had a firm grip as well, as I held her around the waist. The waves picked up and so did the rocking of the boat.

  Normally, situations like this wouldn’t bother me, but the fact that my wife and unborn child were here in this situation made my anxiety rise to the surface.

  The Storm

  MY KNUCKLES WERE white with the force with which I held onto the railing. My eyes anxiously roamed the cabin for my husband who had gone to the restroom only seconds ago. Or it could have been minutes. My anxiety had risen to an all-new level when the waves had begun to crash against the glass and caused the boat to toss me, and all the patrons within, around like rag dolls. To say I was terrified was an understatement. We were still thirty miles from shore and the boat could only go so fast with the force of the waves it was having to battle. It was such a stark contradiction to the beauty of the sky and sun when we had first stepped aboard.

  One of the largest waves yet crashed against the boat causing it to list to the left and also made me lose my grip on the railing. I went sliding across the floor as my arms flailed around to find something to grasp on to. Several others took the force of the wave with me and were too launched to the other side of the boat. Cries, some ear piercing, could be heard from all around.

  “Baby! Baby, are you alright?” I heard my husband yell as he reached down and picked me up and helped me walk back over to the railing where he pinned me between his body and the protection of the rails.

  “I’m okay. Don’t leave me again, please!” I yelled as the force of the rain pounded harder and I could barely hear myself speak. The lights in the cabin had begun to flicker on and off leaving us in flashes of light and darkness. My hands were clammy from my fear and I had a hard time keeping my grip on the railing.

  “I got you, baby. We’re fine. We’re going to be fine.” He reassured me, but I could hear the anxiety in his voice as he leaned in close enough for me to hear.

  My heart rate was erratic. My legs trembled like I had done a million squats at the gym from trying to fight against gravity and the force in which the waves hit the boat.

  Suddenly, a loud crashing sound rang out and I watched as one of the glass walls gave way and it shattered, spilling shards on the wooden floor of the cabin. Water began to spill in causing the floor to become slick. I had long kicked off my high heels in order to get a better grip, but as soon as the water reached my feet, my husband and I both fell to the ground, still gripping onto the rail.

  This wasn’t supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be back in my hotel making slow, sweet love to my husband and cherishing him with my body the way he had cherished my heart. I wasn’t supposed to be out in the middle of the ocean, clinging onto a rail for dear life as my husband desperately tried to keep us from being thrown all around the interior of the boat.

  “Baby, hang on!” He yelled and briefly our eyes met. I could see fear in them, worry about how we were going to make it out of this.

  “I love you,” I yelled.

  “I love you,” I thought I had heard him say back, but it was muffled by the sound of a warning alarm.

  Another wave.

  More glass.

  More water as the cabin began to fill up.

  The crackling of the captain over the speaker saying something about a hole and taking on water.

  Everything began to slow down; time seemed to pass achingly slowly as I looked around at all of horrified faces of all the passengers. Women crying and men desperately clung onto them. I could taste the salt water as it invaded my mouth and felt the spray of the water, soaking my hair and causing it to cling to my head.

  People were bleeding from the shattered glass. Either from being in the direct path as it shattered, or falling to the floor and cutting themselves on the shards that were confettied on there.

  Through the wind and debris that flew around us, I could see Lilly and her husband clinging to each other for dear life. Tears streamed down my face as more water began to fill the cabin.

  When I risked a glance out of the window, my eyes widened in shock as I saw what looked like a tsunami sized wave heading straight for us.

  I looked to my husband seconds before it hit us and we were both catapulted in opposite directions.

  “Ellie!” He screamed and the sound was so painful, that it made my blood curdle. Water assaulted me and burned my nose and lungs as I inhaled it. Water was now in sixty percent of the cabin and I couldn’t find my husband. My legs banged against tables. Chairs floated on the surface along with glass and pieces of steel and wood from the boat.

  Where was he?

  I couldn’t find him.

  I yelled, taking more water into my lungs and barking out a deep cough as it burned. I didn’t care. I had to find him. I needed to get to him and know that he was okay. My teeth began to chatter as a cold chill raked through me. I swam through the angry water as the cabin was now filling up at an alarming rate. Panic began to set in and I knew I had to get out of the cabin before the boat took me under as it continued to sink.

  But I couldn’t leave until I found him.

  Wave upon wave hit against me, some sending me somersaulting through the water, others hitting so hard, the breath was nearly knocked from me.

  I yelled his name.

  There weren’t as many screams as there were before and things were strangely silent except for the angry roar of the ocean.

  “Grab my hand!” I heard someone yell and I turned to see Lilly and her husband both reaching out to me. The boat was nearly completely on its side now and I swam as hard as I could to reach the couple. With every ounce of strength I could find, I finally reached
them as we climbed out one of the broken cabin windows.

  Even in the darkness, I could see the yellow of life jackets floating in the water around us. Some with people alive, and some with people clearly not.

  “We have to get away from the boat or it’s going to pull us under when it goes down!” Lilly’s husband yelled above the wind and water.

  “No! I can’t find my husband!” I cried as I turned to go back into the cabin to find him. Lilly’s husband reached out his hand and caught me by the upper arm stopping me before I had a chance to go back in. As soon as he did, a large wave hit us directly and in an instant, Lilly was taken away with it. I watched in horror as she fought to stay on top of the water, before being pulled under.

  “Lilly! NOOOO!” He yelled, and this time it was my turn to stop him from jumping straight out into the ocean.

  Faintly in the distance I could make out approaching lights. I shivered as the wind bit through my skin and my dress clung to me. Lilly’s husband and I anchored ourselves to whatever we could find. The tears I cried could have been enough to replenish any water lost by the ocean that was trying to swallow us.

  As the lights got closer, and my body began to give way to exhaustion, the last thing that flashed before my mind’s eye was my husband. The man of my dreams, and love of my life. And then darkness consumed me.

  ***

  BRIGHT, BLINDING LIGHT assaulted my eyes when I finally managed to open them. Immediately, I closed my eyes, fighting the stinging pain against the base of my skull.

  “Welcome back Dr. Taylor,” a soft voice said and I risked a peek through my lids once more to find a middle-aged nurse standing next to me. She checked my vitals and adjusted the drip on my IV as I stared at her in confusion.

  “Wh—where am I?” I managed to croak out in a gravely voice. A coughing fit soon followed and I fought to catch my breath as my lungs burned deep within my chest. The nurse lifted an oxygen mask and placed it over my nose and mouth until my coughing subsided.

  “You are at the Lower Keys Hospital, Doctor. Try to relax and I’ll go and let the doctor know you are awake.”

  Quickly she left the room and I glanced up at the TV. Seeing the wreck footage flash across the screen, I instantly searched for the remote to turn up the volume.

  “Searchers are calling Sunday’s incident a recovery situation for they believe there are no other survivors. At approximately nine pm Sunday, the dinner boat, The Evening Star, sank about thirty miles offshore when it encountered a swift approaching storm. Thirty-two people were on board at the time. As of right now, only seven have been confirmed alive. Nineteen bodies have been recovered and five are still unaccounted for. Police have not yet released the names of the passengers of the cruiser until the next of kin have been notified. We’ll keep you up to date on all the latest developments.”

  I sat up in my hospital bed as tears stung the backs of my eyes. It was then that I noticed the bandages on my arms and that my left wrist was wrapped in a makeshift cast.

  “Dr. Taylor, nice to see you awake,” an older, peppered haired doctor said as he entered the room.

  “What happened?” I asked as I gripped at my aching head, feeling like jackhammers were going off in my brain every time I spoke.

  “The boat you were on was hit by hard waves and soon sank when the cabin took on too much water. The coast guard got to you before the boat was fully submerged.”

  He approached me and shone a light in my eyes and I hissed as it assaulted my senses.

  “I’m sorry. Your head must be splitting. I’ll make sure to put in an order for some pain meds. Your wrist isn’t broken, but it is sprained pretty badly and we believe you may have a mild concussion.”

  “How long was I out?’ I asked.

  “About eighteen hours. We have given you some antibiotics due to the amount of water you aspirated. We want to be sure that is doesn’t turn into pneumonia.”

  The fogginess began to subside and then reality began to sit in.

  “Where’s my wife? Is she here too? What room is she in? I need to see her.”

  “Dr. Taylor, as a physician yourself, you know we cannot let you out of the bed. Someone will be in to speak to you in a moment.”

  The sullen look on the doctor’s face before he turned and left the room made my chest tighten to the point I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I heard the faint beeping sound of the monitor increase as my heart rate sped up. I tried to inhale and exhale through my nose, begging my body not to go into a state of panic.

  Hope.

  That was all I had left. As more images from the incident flashed over and over on the screen and in my mind, the only thing I had left was hope.

  Hope that my wife was only a few doors away from me.

  Hope that we could move past this and continue living our lives together like we were meant to.

  Hope that was shattered as soon as the hospital Chaplain entered my room. He didn’t even have to say anything before desperate, earth and soul-shattering sobs tore the very breath from my body.

  It can’t be…

  It can’t be…

  It can’t be…

  It can’t be…

  I don’t recall if I were chanting it out loud or to myself. I reached for the small bucket on the table beside my best and lost the contents of my stomach into it. I alternated desperate pleas mixed with dry heaves, the more that it began to sink in.

  My wife didn’t make it.

  The last vision I had was a wave sweeping her away from me. The last bit of color I remember was red. The same color of the dress she wore.

  “I let go of her! I fucking let go of her!” I cried over and over.

  “There was a woman, Allie, Ellie. I don’t remember. She was trying to go back inside to get to her husband. They were seated at our table earlier that evening. I was trying to stop her. It’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have let go. I shouldn’t have let go!”

  My body violently trembled and I yanked the IVs out of my arm. Thrashing around until the blanket and sheet covering me let my legs free as I tried to get out of the bed.

  “Dr. Taylor, please, please calm down,” the Chaplain begged as he came to stand in front to me, but I ignored him. I fought through the searing pain my body was feeling, running on nothing but pure adrenaline and denial.

  “No, I have to see my wife. Take me to my wife! Please…please…please,” I begged and the Chaplain placed his hands on my shoulders slightly shaking his head from side to side.

  My head collapsed in my arms and I couldn’t stop the tears. I couldn’t get past the gaping hole that was now in my heart. My puzzle was missing its most important piece. The one piece that put my entire life together.

  My soul was lost without her.

  “Lilly…” I cried over and over.

  “I’m so sorry, Evan. I’m so sorry,” was all the Chaplain could say to comfort me.

  ***

  I LAY ON MY SIDE in the fetal position staring out of the window of my hospital room. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to breathe, because it meant that I felt something. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t deserve to have oxygen enter my lungs. I didn’t want to be here alive on earth when he wasn’t.

  “Mrs. Morris, I’m so sorry, but Jeremy didn’t survive the accident,” was all I could repeat over and over in my mind. I watched the love of my life torn from me. Ripped away by the very same force of nature that had brought us together. Honeymoons were supposed to be spent enjoying your spouse and celebrating the life you were going to build together, not curled up in a sterile hospital room mourning their death and feeling like every bit of your soul had been sucked right out of you.

  Jeremy never would have taken me on that boat if it weren’t something he knew I would love. It was all my fault. My stupidity for being a romantic and his stupidity for giving into it.

  I felt numb, vacant and empty, as if my very own life had been stripped right from me. I wish it had been. I wish it were me who wou
ld have died, that way I didn’t have to try and deal with the massive hole in my chest. The desperate need to see his face and hear his voice. I didn’t know how to be me without him. He was my soul mate. My key that only had one lock it would fit.

  “Mrs. Morris?” The soft sound of the nurse broke through my anguish. I still didn’t move, didn’t turn to face her or answer.

  “Is there anything I can get you? Some food or something to drink?” She asked softly as she placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I knew if I spoke I would break. Shatter just like the glass did on the boat, yet no one would be there to help me put the pieces back together. So instead, I just lay there staring at the window, allowing the sunlight to burn through my retinas. Praying that it would rid me of my vision so that I didn’t have to constantly see the flashes of the incident played over and over before me.

  “Well, if you need anything. Just press that red button on the remote and I’ll be right in,” she offered sweetly before retreating and shutting the door softly.

  What I needed was Jeremy. I needed his arms around me telling me everything was going to be okay. I needed him to be okay so that I knew I could go on and be able to function.

  Because without him, I might as well be dead too.

  DENIAL

  RAIN PELTED DOWN ON me, matching my mood as I stood there at the cemetery, my heels digging into the soft ground of the Earth. I vaguely listened as the preacher went on about how wonderful of a man Jeremy was, and how he would be missed by so many. They had no clue. Save for his parents, no one knew the real Jeremy like I did. Not only was he adorably handsome, but also had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I knew. He was the type who would give you the shirt off his back if he knew someone was going without. I was eerily calm as the pallbearers had carried his casket out of the church earlier and placed it in the back of a hearse.